Haven’t had a dream in a long time
These are strange days, readers.
It’s getting hard to tell who’s on which side.
To be honest, we’d take George Foulkes’ offer in a heartbeat. It’s not ideal, because there should be no limits on democracy, but the UK government can perfectly lawfully deny another indyref indefinitely anyway (and seem entirely inclined to), so we’d be losing nothing, and according to polling we’d be starting from a winning position.
His tweet was responding to this Daily Record editorial:
…to which the SNP’s army of online dolts have responded with predictable fury despite it being a remarkable concession from the firmly Unionist newspaper. The Record didn’t say the VOTE in the referendum should have to be over 60%, just that sustained polling over that level should be the trigger for the referendum to HAPPEN.
(And since polls have a margin of error and the change option usually falls away on polling day, it would represent our best chance of winning anyway.)
But as Unionists hold out apparent olive branches and (frankly unearned) opportunities for real and measurable progress towards the SNP’s ostensible goal, how is the SNP responding to these exciting developments?
With a deafening chorus of “WE CANNAE DAE IT!”
In the last 72 hours, senior SNP figures including the FM have insisted that:
(1) they won’t do a deal with Reform to get a referendum,
(2) that any route that isn’t a referendum won’t work, and
(3) that even if a legislator from the current governing party of the UK comes out and explicitly OFFERS a second referendum, they’re going to put their fingers in their ears, pretend it never happened and just pray that he goes away.
That’s pretty much every possible road towards independence rubbished and closed down. Even uber-loyal idiot comic The National is struggling to grasp it all.
Which is understandable, because it makes no sense. After years of simply stalling on the pursuit of independence, the SNP now appears to be in full headlong retreat, running for the hills as fast as their legs will carry them with the Daily Record and George Foulkes and Reform and Uncle Tom Cobley and all running after them going “Come back! Don’t you WANT a referendum?”
But the SNP won’t hear a word of it. “Please, please, please don’t let us get what we claim to want”, they wail.
Because these days of unending power, money and status without responsibility ARE their good times, and they don’t want anything to change.
Kudos for the uncle tom cobbley reference haha. Was sitting on his supposed seat the other day!
Interesting indeed.
The simplest solution is for Westminster to transfer the Constitutional authority to Holyrood for good and allow the Scots to call a referendum whenever they want.
Fuck of Shit unionist paper, its because of your fucking Rag where still in this union.
I’ll take the Plebiscite route every time, it’s simpler for the people to have there say rather than depend on a Unionist polling.
100%
Yup.
Why not 70%, 80, 90 or any of the above over who knows how many years before we are deemed to have suitably waddled and quacked like a duck and the incumbent at no. 10 decides off the bat that “now is not the time” or some other meaningless nonsense anyhow?
Heck they are even blustering over the terms of the Good Friday Agreement now it’s not going their way at the polls.
Bet the Yanks are watching that with cane in hand!
Ouch..
Westminster is a time served bad faith actor and P1shed breeks Ffffffoulkes can go and do one; who does he think he is to lay down ultimatums?
You can tell the “once in a generation” pleasant little Unionist fiction is inexorably dribbling away and that Westminster is desperate to connive another term of comfortable back burner inaction on the subject..
The Constitutional question lays with the people of Scotland and no one else.
If we had a genuine Independence party and a genuine Scottish government the constitutional issue would have been resolved years ago.
Not that we’re going to get one due to our current political emasculation, but we’d lose another referendum unless the electorate are confined to Scots. Otherwise, we start with a 10% disadvantage. ‘Decolonizing’ is all the rage, so I can’t see anyone objecting to doing that to the electoral register.
But can we really trust the SNP? They’d probably put a tranny in charge of the campaign. And they’d tie a Yes vote to the EU, open borders, drag queens in every school…
Yes, I’m fed up of our venal politicians.
“they’d tie a Yes vote to the EU, open borders”
You haven’t been paying attention. That ship sailed years ago.
Exactly.
The WM machine would whirr into action, stopping mass rallies/marches in favour of independence. Our answer would be ‘No’ instead of ‘Yes’ because Swinney would agree to anything in a new S30 to avoid independence.
ALL our councils would be told to make obstacles, forget to mail out voting forms, refuse voting on the day.
The English media would delete ANY pro independence articles…proving to its sheeple public that ‘See! no one really wants indy in Scotland’.
We’d be bombarded on the daily by foreign leaders telling us how out of aaaaallll the 192 odd countries in the world, Scotland could NEVER do it on our own. Hell, even TACO Trump would be threatening us with invasion because ‘our nukes’ might be at risk…
And finally, English run IDOX would ensure the vote counting was jest a couple of percentages in England’s favour. ‘Oh, what a shame, you failed AGAIN.’
We’d lose another indyref. Ditch the indyref idea. It’s old and mouldy. Any thought of shining a light on the bastards of the SNP would fail…WM would make sure of it.
Any decision to dissolve the (fake) Union can never be taken at HR. HR is Westminster’s branch in Scotland. We’d need to create our own convention and reconvene the 3 Estates without HR’s knowledge. Doesn’t matter which iParty is in power. There will ALWAYS be pro-union civil servants in HR to tell WM what we are planning.
For info, my contribution in The National today.
Tommy Sheppard writes in The National as to ” Why a de facto referendum is the wrong route to Scottish independence”. In response I have said this: To regain Scotland’s independence, there are two over-riding criteria. The first is the method by which we demonstrate that the numbers who wish that to happen exceeds the numbers that don’t. The second is to gain the acceptance of UN Member States, and within the parameters of international law, that they will grant recognition to Scotland as an independent Sovereign State.
In 2021 in the pages of this paper, articles appeared which announced the start of the Declaration of a Sovereign Scot initiative. It is not a petition, it is a single Declaration document which becomes alive upon the signature of those over the age of 16, and who are registered to vote. Since 2021, thousands upon thousands who fulfill that criteria have participated and from all over Scotland.
After a scanned copy is retained for future generations to see, the originals are lodged for safe-keeping with the Secretariat of the UN in New York, thus available for scrutiny by all UN Member States. Of far more significance is that ongoing contact has been made with 18 UN Member States, who share this important characteristic, namely as having in their time gained their independence from the UK.
Each signed Declaration is an act of self-determination, a right accorded to the people of a country, but not to Governments.
Do you really believe that the UN would care? Two of the three Security Council members that actually matter are dictatorships and the USA is openly imperialist.
For all the many faults of the UK, they did actually grant a referendum in 2014 — unlike many other states, the UK actually held a vote. I think we should view 2014 as England holding the door open and being quite surprised that we didn’t go. They’re not granting another referendum for the simple reasons that it’s still about 50-50 and it’s difficult for even Scottish nationalists to take the SNP seriously.
This is all because the SNP membership has grown a back bone and got upset about not being being able to talk about Independence at this years conference.
If the SNP membership had never voiced discontent the Record would have have published this piss.
The reality is the more and more people voice that Independence is their preferred option to the union. The more and more the SNP leadership and their MP’s MSP’s and the Unionist papers are going to make changes to stop it ever being achieved.
All those who say you can’t do it this way or that way, they just don’t want Scotland to be Independence period.
With all financial levers controlled by Westminster these 300 years and debt spiralling up to £3 Trillion and the first decade in 150 years where the working class became worse off you have to laugh at the cheek of the English media advising that Scotland has a budget deficit.
Scotland can only spend the budget that Westminster partially returns to us.
With regard another one referendum for eternity,
Would Labour or the Conservatives agree to the winner of the next general election stays in power for eternity?
Anyone for a carrot!
It’s feeding time at the zoo.
By George Foulkes, Baron Foulkes of Cumnock’s – Born in Shropshire and educated privately at The Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School for budding imbeciles situated near London – seriously flawed logic the United Kingdom need only hold one more general election and then never again hold another.
Whichever party wins that general election will form the UK’s government in perpetuity.
And so, at long last, the curse of democracy will be ended and citizens born into Foulkes’ dystopian vision of a future UK can be assigned a social class at birth and serve their nation according to their status.
Well, quite. Lard Foolkes and his ilk would happily do away with elections permanently, makes things much easier for them doing away with democracy which is just an inconvenience for the Fabians.
A disappointing but perhaps not unexpected reversion to type, Northy.
The Record View makes a valid point, not that any of the usual suspects are going to concede that it does.
Put simply, Indy needs to shit, or get off the pot. There’s only so long a country (Scotland) can be simultaneously agitating and havering about whether or not it wants to be in a union, whether that be the UK, the EU or any other.
The Canadians had the same issue with Quebec. Eventually, even the Quebecois sussed that the time to draw a line and move on had come.
Scotland has been on a continuous downwards trajectory for the past decade. Whilst many factors have contributed to that, it’s notable that nobody ever wants to explore or even concede that the continuing uncertainty over Scotland’s constitutional status may be one of these factors.
That sounds good, but it’s not right. Obviously.
“Next!”
The Daily Record’s ‘suggestion’ is merely an effort to make British Labour relevant again in Scotland so that they can eat into the SNP vote at election time.
It’s as simple as that – there are no principles involved.
Why 60%? Why not 90%?
Does that threshold include the undecided?
For how long?
Which opinion polls?
Which measure – mean, mode median?
etc
The SNP are led by con-men and their activists – those remaining – are donkeys.
But this ‘offer’ from British Labour is just a cynical attempt to force more of their own careerists onto the Holyrood gravy train.
“After years of simply stalling on the pursuit of independence, the SNP now appears to be in full headlong retreat, running for the hills as fast as their legs will carry them with the Daily Record and George Foulkes and Reform and Uncle Tom Cobley and all running after them going “Come back! Don’t you WANT a referendum?””
I don’t see any mystery there. Surely it’s obvious why they don’t want IndyRef2?
For some years to come yet, firing the starting gun on any IndyRef2 campaign will unleash a tsunami of criticism from the No side against the SNP, and by extension Indy, over the abysmal catalogue of sleaze, malfeasance and incompetence that has been their defining characteristics for more than a decade.
The Salmond stitch up. The Covid care home deaths. The jam jar scheme. Murrell. The missing ring fenced funds. Cocks in frocks. The wanton dismantling of Scotland’s oil and gas. All these rotting corpses will be dis-interred and gleefully paraded by the No side while the Yes campaign withers on the vine.
It’s not only the UK media that will be piling in. The world’s media will be putting the SNP’s record under the spotlight and no apolitical, disinterested Scot will be able to avoid realising that as is often pointed out on here, the SNP couldn’t run a successful jumble sale.
By all means, push for an early IndyRef2 if that’s what you really want.
But as the SNP realise, even if few others do, Yes is not going to win it.
The Record doesn’t even come close to making a valid point… or any point at all.
This is the Record’s editorial’s main idea:
This is politically interesting but constitutionally meaningless.
Why?
Because:
So the proposal is politically symbolic, not legally operative.
The Record’s editorial uses a classic rhetorical manoeuvre:
This is a false equivalence frame… a way of presenting political stalemate as “paralysis” so the editorial can justify its preferred solution.
The Record also says:
That’s not neutral… that’s a declared bias.
But then it goes on to frame its proposal as:
This is a neutrality mask… a rhetorical device where a partisan actor presents its preferred outcome as the “reasonable middle.”
Then the Record uses a kind of political language to create a sense of inevitability using “Inevitability Framing”:
But these are not facts… they’re imperatives disguised as observations.
And then The Record proposes:
This isn’t a legal threshold.
It’s not a constitutional threshold.
And it’s not an international threshold.
It’s a manufactured threshold – a rhetorical device designed to make a referendum harder to achieve while sounding reasonable.
So what’s The Record’s real message?
Well, handily, I have it right here:
Put slightly differently The Record’s editorial tries to sound balanced by proposing a “commission” and a “trigger point,” but the underlying logic is:
That’s the underlying message behind The Record’s anti-independence editorial piece.
In short; Carrots!
Northy you explain it very well
Labour and the Daily Redcoat’s NEW VOW
Jeezo! All that hot air just to agree with the SNP at the end.
“They’re talking about offering us an Indy Ref! Run for the Hills!”
Very good, Northcode.
Michael Collins believed that British strategic ambiguity was a tactic used to maintain control over Ireland, often leading to confusion and division among Irish leaders. He said that this ambiguity hindered the establishment of a clear and united Irish Republic.
That strategic ambiguity can be seen in GFA provisions on Irish reunification.
It says: “The Secretary of State shall exercise the power under paragraph 1 [to call a referendum, or “border poll”] if at any time it appears likely to him that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland.”
It is entirely left to the Sec of State to decide how the likelihood of a successful border poll should be assessed and what is the meaning of “likely”.
You might want to read the article on this subject.
link to internationallaw.blog
The UK is a trap. They are openly admitting it. A normal government would go to the UN , as clearly we fall under the very definition of a colony. There is no democratic exit door within the confines of the UK state. The door is rammed shut forever.
Why not at least go to the UN for them to decide if we meet the criteria. This would call England’s bluff. They either concede it’s for Scotland to decide, or if not they are colonisers. Either way we make something happen. Because if the UN states we are not a colony, they must identify the mechanism that allows Scotland to secede.
And another one.
“A normal government would go to the UN”
Yes, that is what our ‘nationalist’ government should have been doing since first elected in 2007, had they better understood our colonial condition.
Which proves ‘their understanding is rudimentary’ (Fanon).
Instead the movement have been forced to do it for ourselves:
link to liberation.scot
And if the UN tells you to have a referendum, Alf, to demonstrate there’s some substance behind your claims that oppressed Scots yearn for Indy, then what?
Will the usual suspects pop up and claim that nobody tells Sovereign Scots when we can and can’t have a referendum?
There’s already plenty of that going on here today.
Why is the membership info on this Mickey Mouse party a secret to those of us who are not existing members?
It would be interesting to know who the ‘high heid yins’ were.
“so we’d be losing nothing”
That is just horribly wrong. Westminster has no legitimate role in the exercise by the people of Scotland of our right of self-determination. Why would we give them such a role? It’s bad enough that our First Minister is happy to accept and affirm the veto over the will of Scotland’s people, now you want to let an odious lickspittle like George Foulkes dictate terms.
Westminster has no legitimate role in the exercise by the people of Scotland of our right of self-determination. Giving them such a role is the madness of the Sturgeon doctrine. It is the idiocy which has crippled Scotland’s cause.
Westminster has no legitimate role in the exercise by the people of Scotland of our inalienable right of self-determination. When even Wings Over Scotland exhibits the symptoms of the colonised mind, Scotland’s cause is in serious trouble.
The people of Scotland are sovereign. That the people of Scotland are sovereign is both a constitutional fact and an inviolable principle. When even Wings Over Scotland is happy to trade our sovereignty for the worthless baubles of British promises, it really is time for a lifelong Scottish nationalist like myself to succumb to despair.
I agree with you here Peter. Fucking grim.
Yes.
Yes lets vote? Now? Soon? Consider nothing, everything will be all right on the night. Even setting aside the principles of rights and sovereignty. Organised, mediated and with rules constructed by the British state in England with the SNP acting out the role on the Scottish side for forms sake. Sounds like a winner in a country as corrupted as Scotland, with so little Scottish owned within it and with the massive demographic changes that have taken place in the country since the last vote and the desperate time we have had imposed on us since we lost that vote. Jesus man. You make me very afraid for my country. I know I am not alone and fear is the worst of emotions.
@GM:
I was responding to Peter’s comments – not Wings.
Scotland has the same legal rights as England a section 30 order was imposed on Scotland via the Scotland act we didn’t vote for it, .
Democracy doesn’t begin and end in England its the Scots who have the first and final say, we just need a party to stand up for our rights. The SNP are hell bent on denying Scots any right to be Independent.
Peter, your arrangements are winning and its got the MSM and the unionist up in arms.
Aye, who would want an Indy referendum if its genesis is not of the utmost ideological purity?
And so, via the inexorable twists of pretzel logic, the same conclusion as that already reached by the SNP is re-affirmed:
“They’re talking about offering us a referendum on Indy! Run for the hills!”.
This is so fucking stupid that the above phrase really does have to be said out loud in the voice of Wullie the Janitor from the Simpsons.
You seem to be saying any old referendum will do. As if all referendums are the same. I really hope that’s not what you are saying. But it certainly looks that way.
Fair enough. It’s a trap.
Still, though, I’m confused. All those years of demanding a second referendum.
Was all that just some kind of theater? If there ever had been a second referendum, would that also have been a trap?
Perhaps, we need to decide early how to act if this current hot potato comes to anything. Agree the best way to respond if a second referendum on Indy lands on our calendar.
Maybe Sovereign Scots need to signal their displeasure and disapproval by boycotting it en mass.
Or spoil our ballots by writing “we demand a real referendum” on them.
If the deficit bluff showed signs of failing I would have my local agents veer progressive and adjust ‘the people of Scotland’ with conservative imports.
In the fantasy world of kolonized Kretins (great name for a punk band) why have the Romans not been brought to the International Tribunal for people who are no longer with us. They took over the whole of the known world and they have not paid one denarius in reparations or apologized to the ancestors of their enslaved peoples i.e Me. Since the Holy Roman church inherited the empire and their mission statement is universal it only follows that they are responsible and liable for reparations to everybody.
That’s odd, Mark.
My reparations award confirmation came in a blue envelope, marked “THIS IS NOT A CIRCULAR”, and stamped with an eagle on a bunch of sticks. 100 Denarius PM, indexed to inflation, for life.
Everybody I know got one.
I can’t imagine why they left you out. Unless you’re the basturt great great great something or other of some Carthaginian, pachyderm-herding cant.
My ancestors were a non discriminatory cattle reappropriation clan. They put in years of service to Hadrian and his filthy mates. The Carthaginian incident was regrettable and they apologised at the time.
Personally I don’t want an indyref anytime soon for the simple reason that the SNP would have a major part to play in winning it and they would f**k it up, putting us back even further than we already are.
The first aim for indy supporters should be to get rid of the SNP and then concentrate on an indyref after that.
“I don’t want an indyref anytime soon”
“get rid of the SNP”
The SNP don’t want an indyref anytime soon either.
So you want to get rid of the party of government that’s actually doing what you want.
You’re a hard man to please.
“So you want to get rid of the party of government that’s actually doing what you want.”
The SNP ‘Scottish Government’ is a colonial administration and therefore it is NOT doing what the movement wants or expects it to do. As a colonial administration it is doing precisely what the colonizer wants it to do.
Keep up Hatey.
Same reason I suspect for a lot of No Voting Grant -ie coming to the conclusion that the current crop of Scottish parliamentatians couldn’t run a bath let alone a country.
Stu,
Well at least Scotland would not incur any national debt,
As Scotland does not have a Mint of its own to back up a national bank registered in Scotland,
Just the registered bank of England.
I was researching which article in the 1707 treaty of Union states that Scotland cannot hold a referendum in Scotland.
i was also researching and could not find a new treaty of union between The old 1707 Scottish parliament and the parliament of Great Britain,
So I am presuming that only the 1707 treaty of union with the parliament of England still exists.
Therefore make the presumption that it is the parliament for England and Wales that continues a refusal for Scotland to leave the voluntary treaty of union,
“it is the parliament for England … that continues a refusal for Scotland to leave the voluntary treaty of union”
Aye James, Scots should not expect anything else, especially once we understand from postcolonial theory and the experience of many other colonized peoples that: ‘colonialism is force’ (Fanon) and ‘geographic violence’ (Memmi), and that; colonialism is built upon ‘hateful racism’ (Cesaire) of a people and their culture, with ‘fascism at its root’ (Kelley).
And, at the same time, we need to understand that colonialism is also ‘a co-operative venture’ with native elites (Fanon); those native groups who ‘crave dependence’ and assimilate, ‘adopting the culture and values of the colonizer’, and consequently their own condemnation as they ‘sacrifice’ (Cesaire) their ain fowk an naition.
Phew, Alf, you’ll have had a narrow escape.
Back in May I predicted your comfort zone would consist of another 5 years flogging your post-colonialist piffle. So far, 100% on the nose.
The promise, or more likely threat as you would see it, of an Indy Ref must be generating the odd posterior squeak, but I see you’re already hard at work to kill that off at birth and get back to your cosy, familiar status quo.
I guess there’s hardly one word that you ever write that could withstand even a glancing dunt against reality.
How does it go again in your world? Just one more quote from Cesaire and we’re free?
Scotland and Englands voluntary 1707 treaty of union created the parliament of Great Britain so they say, However the Parliament of Great Britain has not created a new treaty of union separately with Scotland.
So the parliament of England and Wales within the parliament of Great Britain must be active in acting as a live continuing parliament of England.
Was that parliament not meant to be dissolved also to create the new parliament of Great Britain,
So the parliament for England and Wales which Scotland is actually in a treaty with is refusing Scotland.
As mentioned above, I am researching the articles of the 1707 treaty of union with the parliament of England and Wales that would specifically state that Scotland cannot hold a referendum on Scottish independence in Scotland.
NC has it. Lo and behold! There’s the straw man for all, right there!
A commission. (The sound of nails being hammered further into the coffin for another two years)
How we miss Alex Salmond at this time. He would be running rings round the unionists, fearty nationalists and devolutionists in these circumstances. Still waiting for another real leader to emerge who will unite the movement. Its coming but nothing in sight as yet.
“Still waiting for another real leader to emerge who will unite the movement”
Wow! You have the difficulty in clear sight, but you lack whatever is needed to take the final step to understanding the solution.
It’s not “the movement” that needs united. It’s the people. The Sovereign Scots, or a majority of them at least.
As long as you persist in believing implicitly and explicitly that only “the movement” matters, you’ll always fail.
As it happens, that’s something that Alex Salmond not only instinctively knew, but said and wrote many, many times.
Shame you never listened.
They say that it is the 1707 treaty of union, its terms, conditions and articles that binds Scotland and England together to create the state of Great Britain.
I am perfectly happy to look and study those terms, conditions and articles as if they are what is binding on both Scotland and England,
Lets hope that those that want the union to exist today do not protest to loudly against that reviewing of whats binding on the two voluntary kingdoms and old parliaments of Scotland and England.
For it must be about the old parliaments and kingdoms and realms that made the 1707 treaty, not the modern versions, for they did not exist at the time of the 1707 treaty of union .
The First article I am researching, it requires there to be an article mentioning in the treaty of Union of a Devolved parliament sent to Scotland under the legislation and Statues of the parliament for England and Wales or the parliament of Great Britain.
The only reference regards parliaments in the treaty of union, refers to “One and the Same parliament”
There is NO reference to a devolved Parliament in a entirely different Country of Scotland than that of England, as this would make two separate parliaments,
NOT ONE AND THE SAME parliament.
Alf,
Indeed,
But we will be advised that one part of the 1707 treaty is applicable but not the bits that they wish to ignore,
This has always been my goal. To elaborate on the false narrative of the treaty of union and what is reality.
And union believers always argue there is a treaty that binds Scotland to England, or as the case may be, actually equally so, binds England to Scotland.
For they must uphold everything they agreed too.
The National Debt of the bank of England is a interesting one if it claims to be the Bank of Great Britain after the treaty of union,
As Scotlands mint was done away not so long after the treaty.
The onus now lies on the bank of England to cover Scotland’s, national debt for as long as it was or is receiving money from and for Great Britain along with the treasury.
If Scotland is being treated illegally by Westminster and the EU as a devolved region of England then the Nation of Scotland would have no national debt. The debt belongs to England on what it owes to other Countries.
And could not include ( Scottish tax ) as different or above Englands as a separate Country which it is doing,
It could not have a devolved government in Scotland as that requires boundaries to a limited Country that is named under the Scotland act from Westminster.
It seems that wether its the bank of England, the devolved parliament of Scotland, or the borders required to maintain a treaty between Scotland and England has become confused in Westminster, the EU, and other entities.
We are a Sovereign Country and nation for the 17o7 treaty of Union to exist….to create the State and British parliament to Exist.
And that treaty falls flat in its face for all other Countries treaties as well, if Scotland NO longer exist as a Sovereign nation in a 1707 treaty.
I think I have seen similar shite like this on Wings previously.
Mind you, only 10,563 times.
It never ends.
All the talk of how to get to an Indyref is I feel another distraction from the matter of the day. We all know the SNP have no interest in doing anything to gain independence so why is it in the news this week?
I’m pretty sure @revstu ran articles saying that after voting No in 2014 that SG would be left delivering cuts to public services with no real way out.
Today we see Swinney’s big idea is to have 2 health boards rather than 14. You’ll hear a lot about how this will streamline etc but in reality its to wipe the debts of Boards that SG had overloaded with commitments they made and boards had to deliver. Its also another way of kicking the can done the road – you don’t get a GP appointment “well thats because we are in the early days of transforming the health service and in a few years all will be good”
Its all nonsense. The boards are struggling financially because a certain Finance minister implemented an efficiency target. Once that was seen to work it allowed future SG politicians to expect the NHS to pay for their unfunded commitments.
The boards have had to deal with the effects of Brexit (less people wanting to do the job therefore to get folk in means offering better wages), SG agreeing to pay NHS staff more to avert strikes but passing the cost to boards to fund, SG agree a 36 working week but the boards have to figure out how to work it, NHS has a no redundancy policy but boards need to make unproductive employees productive, Boards need to move faster with adoption of digital solutions but are legally responsible and all over the press if they have a cyber attack, SG wants gender affirming care but the boards have to deliver and potentially will be liable once the lawsuits arrive. If 14 chief Exec’s couldn’t solve that a fourteenth of that problem what chance does a single chief exec have with 50% of that problem?
The actions above are what I would expect of a Unionist party all to willing to do the bidding of their pals in Westminster in the hope of a seat in the house of lords. Instead we have SNP politicians and in particular Swinney as a constant thread in what appears to be the managed destruction of Scotland’s public services and for him his prize is pay and a pension. For Westminster that means they have cut the cost of colonial administration so they must love Swinney and the SNP
Scotland is not a serious country. We have a brief few years between 2007 and 2014 were we looked like we might be capable of better but since then we have become worse than what pre-dated 2007 and today’s actions pretty much guarantee another few decades of decline. We so desperately need a new political leader.
“another distraction from the matter of the day”
I couldn’t work out what the matter of the day is from reading your post.
Could you clarify?
Unless it’s that the tax take no longer covers government spending anywhere, whether that’s the government in London, Edinburgh or Cardiff.
That being the case, with the tax take just about maxxed out, government spending is gonna have to suffer deep cuts, whether that’s the government in London, Edinburgh or Cardiff.
That’s not the matter of the day. That’s the matter of every day for the rest of our lives.
If you think things are bad now, just wait until the AI revolution really gets started on jobs and the tax take 🙂
Well, get yourself a job – that’ll help oot wee bit 🙂
He’s doing his job; on here.
Distract, divert, divide.
All day, every day.
Naw, MH. The rate per word posting on here is too good. Plus unlimited double rate over the weekend.
Also, it’s not a job that AI will be able to take over. Once you’ve sussed what the ‘I’ stands for, you’ll understand that the machines can’t drop IQ to drag themselves down to the level of the usual suspects.
They get lost in infinite regression loops, unable to navigate the internal contradictions and self-negating logic of most of the posts.
Are you sure that I cannae tempt you over to the electronic world?
Don’t worry about sniffing the solder smoke – it’s fine man, I mean who doesn’t love the pine-fresh aroma of the classic 60/40 SnPb rosin-core? I’ve been doing it for 25 years now and there’s nothing wrong with me, is there? 🙂
MH.
Indeed, nothing wrong. But mind, you’re on Wings BTL.
That sets the bar very low.
Ach, you cynical sod 🙂
Now for the shocking story of how I descended into a life of solder-sniffing depravity…
…see, the aroma of rosin-flux solder reminds of an occasion long, long ago which involved yin o’ thon dressage wifies, a 21-year old Minceheid and some pinewood incense. Every wisp of smoke from the iron takes me back, but that’s fine by me 😀
It was in relation to the SG announcement that they cut the number of Health Boards from 14 to 2. Set to be announced at 3pm. Here is the BBC article link to bbc.co.uk
The approach to the Islands looks at best confused
The thing that all independence-supporting people need to realise is that England itself, and England-as-the-UK, has changed dramatically in the past 30 years or so. It is not, and never will be again in the foreseeable future, a world leader. It would appear that the English just want their country to be English, and that is what Reform is promising them. Imagine if, like independence supporters dream of up here with the SNP uniting with all other independence parties and groups and movements, Reform, the Tories and Restore all united in favour of an independent England?
When you sup with the Devil, you require a very long spoon, but you don’t rule out supping with him no matter how black the Earl o Hell’s waistcoat is. If there really is no other way. There are, however, other ways and other ways without another referendum. The lack of courage in Scotland and the Unionist lobby combine, right now, to ruin any chance to make Scotland a better place in which to live. Independence will be hard, but the appetite is there to be exploited in the interests of a better future for Scotland and her people.
Things are only going to become grimmer and grimmer in England. For the first time in a long time, the rural middle-class is angry and restless, in common with the working-class communities, both rural and urban, and, as AI starts to erode urban middle-class jobs, that unrest is going to spill over into action. The middle-class will happily sit back as working-class communities are forced to bear the burden of idiotic policies, but, when its own interest are threatened, it will mobilise. No revolution can succeed unless the middle-class is leading it. Don’t be lulled into thinking otherwise. The UK is long overdue a revolution and the end result will be the dissolution of the Union, with independence all round, and, perhaps, a Scandi-type co-operation in the longer term.
Not much to argue with there.
As always, I query the “settled assumption” that once things start to fission, the fission will occur along the current lines on the map that delineate England, Scotland, Wales, etc.
Balkanisation of former imperial colonies is more the norm than the exception, but for obvious reasons, Professor Baird will never quote us anything that Fanon, Memmi, etc ever had to say about the “arbitrary lines drawn on the map by the alien colonisers” (Hatey).
Quite why the resource rich, small ‘c’ conservative regions of Scotland will want to sub the impoverished, benefits junkies of the socialist ghettos eludes me.
As does the idea of the stubborn, tight and self-sufficient folk of Yorkshire bailing out the third-world shithole that London has turned into.
I think we’re all fated to live in interesting times.
You may be right, H McH, that Balkanisation would occur. That is a risk we have to take. Throughout English history, Yorkshire and Northumberland have been thorns in the side of the monarchy, but, never, has either region actually attempted to secede in earnest. However, who can tell?
Scotland is less likely to splinter, although, I agree, on the face of it, it appears that we have even greater discrepancies between areas. The way round that is to return to the past: reintroduce the burghs and bring back local democracy, and work outwards from there. This would work, I think, in the rural areas, although they also worked in the past in the more urban areas, too. I, personally, can see no benefit in independence unless it restores local democracy and accountability. The districts were okay, too, but the regions were far too unwieldy and expensive, and sucked everything into the centre.
The life-giving utilities (water, energy, transport, etc.) all need to be run on a co-ordinated and integrated network of both local and central control. Same with education, NHS, etc. The truth of centralising is that it became huge and remote and far more costly. Taxation needs to be equalised as much as possible, but councils should be able to raise revenue through local taxation in co-ordination with central taxation. Differences in health between one area and another can be equalised by taxation transfers from richer areas to poorer areas. Other than necessary control and administration, people should be allowed to run their own affairs as they see fit with far less central government or even local government interference in their daily lives. SMEs need to be afforded favourable tax breaks to stimulate business and enterprise in local communities.
Married women should have the option of working or being paid a living wage to stay at home with their children for at least the first five years – with the proviso that they want to do so, of course – and married couples should be afforded tax breaks and other incentives, such as social housing, to marry, to have children and to stay together unless that becomes impossible through domestic abuse, infidelity, etc. If we want to grow our population, this is the only sane way to do it. The balance between cost and long-term benefits will even themselves out, because ‘woke’ policies always end up costing considerably more, as has wholesale privatisation of everything, as time has proven.
Staying with what STU has posted in relationship to referendums,
Scotlands as a Sovereign Country has every right to hold its referendum without permission.
If The GB parliament wish to hold on to treaties it has made with other Countries,
Then it has to hold onto its status as the Great Britain parliament.
It has to do that by retaining two Sovereign Countries are in the treaty of union that is the foundation of the GB parliament.
And the 1707 treaty Is only between two Countries, Scotland and England.
England cannot refuse Scotlands people anymore than Scotland could refuse Englands people on a english referendum.
For both Countries remain individual nations, and Countries within that voluntary union.
Or no treaty exists.
England however did not make a treaty with a region, remember that,
And we are all living in the 21st century NOT the 18th !
Remember that !
Westminster or the EU cannot convert a named Country in a 1707 treaty, into a region in the same treaty without ending the vey treaty itself.
Which would result in the Country of Scotland becoming independent from the treaty.
The refusal of England and the parliament of Westminster under the late “Scotland act ” to not allow a referendum to Scotland , as it is not mentioned or referred to in terms, conditions or articles regarding devolved government or the Supreme Courts sets the treaty of union in a awkward position and on a knife edge,
Scotland as a named Country to the 1707 treaty of union has the ” Claim of Right ” , ” private rights within Scotland” to hold a referendum in Scotland, non of those rights mentioned here involve a certain % required to make it valid in Westminster parliament.
However it does allow Scotlands people to choose when, where and how without limitations being posed by Westminster parliament.
Lorncal.
True the old empire is dying and England will become a hell hole to reside in unless of course they realise that ending the treaty of union may release Scotland,
but save England from its awful repeated governments that have been swallowed by DEI and wrongful laws manipulated, being applied against them.
We shall have to wait and see if my personal opinion on how England is evolving turns out to be correct, time will tell.
James Che says:
“We shall have to wait and see if my personal opinion on how England is evolving turns out to be correct, time will tell.”
I can assure you “James” that no-one EVER needs to wait to decide whether your opinions are correct !
Save England from dei and wrongful laws manipulated?
Is that not exactly what is happening in Scotland driven by the SP and the SNP?
The people of Scotland don’t act like a nation that is desperate for independence and the SNP are overwhelmed with indifference. They should be constantly disrupting Westminster attracting international attention until England is forced to allow a referendum.
I despair at the lack passion in my own countrymen and women.
Insider,
True, as it happening regardless, you do not need to wait.
McDuff.
Or they could pressured into with drawing their MSP from Westminster.on breaches of the treaty of union. There are a lot of options for the SNP,
It is not the people of Scotland making those decisions or ignoring the will of Scotlands people, the in placed puppet politics of the SNP that is the problem and as BJ stated and recently, our Votes have been interfered with in Scotland and never an option of cemocracy to re-run those elections to correct that repeated interference.
The politicians will procrastinate until they no longer can. This reminds me – well, I have read about it and studied it, but not actually lived it – the pre WW II Chamberlain era. He did his level best, against the advice of wiser heads, albeit he was no fool either, to put off there evil hour. However, I feel that history has not felt fairly with Chamberlain who was very ill: he afforded Britain extra time to rearm at the expense, of course, of Czechoslovakia, as it was then.
Churchill and others warned him that all the Czech defences were on the Czech-German border and, if the Sudetenland was ceded to Hitler, Czechoslovakia would have no defences left and he would take the whole of Czechoslovakia – which, of course, he did, before helping himself to Poland and the Eastern European nations en route to Russia. Acquiescing and conceding does buy you time, but, sooner rather than later, you will have to stand and ‘fight’.
Wiser heads in Scotland than those perched in the SNP (or in most of it, perhaps not everyone) or the Greens know that we are going to have to make a stand for independence, however we do it. Another referendum that we can lose again may not be the best way – or will it be third time lucky? However we get there, we will have to go for it. Unless we are ‘arming’ ourselves by constructing a template for an independent Scotland – currency, central bank, retail and investment banks, democratic revival, future energy sources, water conservation, etc., we are going nowhere fast. Those things, of course, pre suppose a visible and structured route march to independence in the first place. Are you listening, SNP and Unionists? It’s going to happen with or without you. How you react will determine how the independistas react!
I find it hard to forgive the record and the unionist media!! They are looking to survive when independence happens!
keep piling the pressure on the Scottish establishment which the SNP is at the centre off!